The original impulse of man is uncontrolableness. When the spirit of
life first descends upon us, we desire and attempt to be as free as air.
We are impatient of restraint. This is the period of the empire of will.
There is a power within us that wars against the restraint of another.
We are eager to follow our own impulses and caprices, and are with
difficulty subjected to those who believe they best know how to control
inexperienced youth in a way that shall tend to his ultimate advantage.

The most moderate and auspicious method in which the old may endeavour
to guide and control the pursuits of the young, undoubtedly is by the
conviction of the understanding. But this is not always easy. It is not
at all times practicable fully to explain to the apprehension of a very
young person the advantage, which at a period a little more advanced he
would be able clearly to recognise.

There is a further evil appertaining to this view of the subject.

A young man even, in the early season of life, is not always disposed to
obey the convictions of his understanding. He has prescribed to himself
a task which returns with the returning day; but he is often not
disposed to apply. The very sense that it is what he conceives to be an
incumbent duty, inspires him with reluctance.

An obvious source of this reluctance is, that the convictions of our
understanding are not always equally present to us. I have entered into
a deduction of premises, and arrived at a conclusion; but some of the
steps of the chain are scarcely obvious to me, at the time that I am
called upon to act upon the conclusion I have drawn. Beside which,
there was a freshness in the first conception of the reasons on which
my conduct was to be framed, which, by successive rehearsals, and
by process of time, is no longer in any degree spirit-stirring and
pregnant.

This restiveness and impracticability are principally incident to us in
the period of youth. By degrees the novelties of life wear out, and we
become sober. We are like soldiers at drill, and in a review. At first
we perform our exercise from necessity, and with an ill grace. We had
rather be doing almost any thing else.

By degrees we are reconciled to our occupation. We are like horses in a
manege, or oxen or dogs taught to draw the plough, or be harnessed to a
carriage. Our stubbornness is subdued; we no longer exhaust our strength
in vain efforts to free ourselves from the yoke.

Conviction at f